Destin Pfaff came into the business of love reluctantly. It’s not that he doesn’t believe in the power of attraction, or the institution of marriage. (For the record he’s engaged, and the happy couple have a 7 month-old son.) It’s just that a career in sales didn't appeal, and it never really... more

Destin Pfaff came into the business of love reluctantly. It’s not that he doesn’t believe in the power of attraction, or the institution of marriage. (For the record he’s engaged, and the happy couple have a 7 month-old son.) It’s just that a career in sales didn't appeal, and it never really occurred to him that one could make a living -- and a good one at that -- selling access to something that most people hope to find for free, namely a soul mate.

Pfaff had actually set his heart on a screenwriting career, with horror being his first love. He had some early success in that direction, making it to the semi-finals of Screamfest LA in 2003 with a script he penned called Ripp. However fate, or more accurately Patti Stanger, intervened and his professional life took a rather unexpected turn.

Stanger is the founder of the Millionaire's Club, a Beverly Hills-based dating service for well-heeled clients who’ve yet to get lucky in love. It’s her job to see the potential in people, and she saw lots of that when she came across Pfaff. Despite his initial disinclination to commit to Stanger’s high-end matchmaking service, Pfaff turned out to be a natural in the art of pairing people off.

Pfaff’s skills in the romance department can currently be seen on Bravo’s reality series "The Millionaire Matchmaker." Now in its third season, the show follows Stanger, Pfaff and their Millionaire's Club cohorts as they set up their clients.

SuicideGirls caught up with Pfaff to find out what it takes to be a matchmaking professional, and to get the behind-the-scenes scoop on the on camera love action.

SuicideGirls: Where did you grow up?

Destin Pfaff: I was born in Santa Barbara and I grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska. I lived there for 13 years. Then, I came back to Santa Barbara for high school and college. It was just a lot of fun. I completely enjoyed it. I DJ’d there and I had a really good time. Then, by about 24, 25, I figured I had to get my act together and moved to LA to become a writer.

SG: Oh, that's what you moved to LA for?

DP: Yeah. I came to LA to be a horror movie writer. I found my muse a little bit and I started writing. I did exactly what I needed to do.

SG: Where in LA did you move to?

DP: I moved to Hollywood -- right in the heart of Hollywood.

SG: What year was this?

DP: Eight years ago, so it would be 2002. Ball park. Guessing. The first script that I wrote, the boys over at Fangoria Magazine and [its editor] Tony Timpone, gave me a really nice boost and did a little shopping for me. [They] wrote a nice little article about it and they bought it.

Then, Alex Wright, who's been an early supporter of mine, who did a couple of Wishmaster movies as well as Styx and a few other films, helped me write my next script and gave me notes, taught me the proper structure of everything. All the while, I was working...I ran this small business in Westwood that was a unique job place. If you were an actor or a writer or a director or model, and you just needed some cash, you'd come to us. We'd throw you out there, we'd get you costume character work. We'd get you burlesque show jobs, strip-o-grams, catering jobs, bartending jobs...

SG: Odd jobs for creative people, who aren't looking for a career but who need to make some money.

DP: Basically, they have to pay rent.

SG: Did you start that business?

DP: No, I worked for a guy by the name of Michael Weiss. He was leaving for Florida, to go become a chef somewhere. And, [he asked me to] take care of [his] business. I met him, and the next day, he said, Good luck!” I said, “That's a lot of trust buddy, but all right.” It was cool. No, you know, he was great. The job was great. Really enjoyed that.

SG: Sounds like a good business.

DP: We got very busy, and it started kind of taking over my life a little bit. I was adamant that I didn't want to get stuck in a corporate environment. I was good at running people's businesses and I didn't want to do that, so I quit and I went to Tower.

SG: Tower Records?

DP: Tower Video actually, across the street from Tower Records. Got a day job. I was like, "OK, work the day job, write at night." Wrote a few screen plays, then, Tower was getting ready to go out of business...

[Then] Patty, from Millionaire's Club, she found me online on Craig's List. [She] called me up, asked me to help her get her shit together. This was supposed to be like a two-week gig just to get some things situated. Then, I was done. Then, she tried to convince me to stay. I said no, then she convinced me, and then I said yes. And years and years have passed.

SG: When was it that you first went to go work for her?

DP: About four and a half years ago. Right when the show was getting ready for pilot.

SG: She had a business before the show?

DP: Yeah, the Millionaire's Club has been in existence for almost 10 years now.

SG: Gotcha. So she was running the business, and when they decided to do the pilot she needed some extra help.

DP: It's a boutique company, and there was so much room for her to expand it a little bit more and get a further reach. Re-do her website. Her website was straight up 1992, Republican era. She was very unorganized, everything was just a mess...She had bad people helping her, and she went through a bad slough of people. I came in there to help out and she ended up teaching me how to do what she does. I just didn't know I had a knack for it, but I guess I did -- weirdest thing in the world.

SG: Tell me about your first couple of weeks working there.

DP: Well, coming from retail was a different sort of situation, but I had worked for larger personalities before...When I met her, I went and interviewed at her house, I was like, "I don't really need a job. "

SG: But, it must have seemed interesting...

DP: No.

SG: Really? You're saying that you didn't have any initial inkling that it might be an interesting business?

DP: Not even a little bit. Couldn't care less. Completely, honestly couldn't care less. It was a paycheck. When I talked to her on the phone, she did a quick five-minute phone interview with me. She was so fast, very East Coast, and just very Patty. She's right to the point.

I interviewed at her house. I didn't interview at her office. That was kind of weird. She was in a bathrobe, and, I was like, "This is just not me.” She was yelling at her assistant. I'm like, "You're yelling at somebody." Then, she offered me money and I said OK. And then a week into it...

SG: So you went to the office the next day?

DP: Yeah. Immediately. Next day I went back to her house. I actually worked out of her house with her.

SG: Gotcha. What was the first problem to tackle?

DP: It was everything. Her assistant wasn't doing things right, paperwork wasn't in order, clients weren't being serviced, the website was in disarray, her emails weren't working, her networking system was down -- everything was wrong.

SG: So you took responsibility for all of it.

DP: Yeah, the best I could. Everything that needed to get done, it was [snaps] just like that. I mean, it was a week or two's worth of work. Then she asked me to stay on as an Executive Assistant for her...She's actually a sweet pussycat, once you get past that tough exterior, and she showed that to me. She's literally my best friend. We've been best friends for four years now. I mean, we do almost everything together.

SG: So you initially had no inclination towards wanting to work in that area. Tell me about how it grew on you and how you discovered you were good at it.

DP: I was an artist guy. I was a writer, I like horror movies, that's all I really wanted to do. I was so against getting sidetracked. And, she sidetracked me -- magically! But she did it in a way that didn't take away from the writing. She gave me all the time off I needed. She wasn't overly demanding of me.

SG: If you had to go to a pitch in the middle of the day, you could go.

DP: Exactly. I had complete freedom, which was great.

SG: That is great, to have a paycheck and the ability to go do your own thing.

DP: Yeah. And then she forced me to learn what she knew. Because I was like, "I will run the business stuff, I'll help you with the website, but I don't want to deal with the clients. I don't want to deal with the girls, that's too much work." It probably took about a year...

SG: So, the whole first year, you had nothing to do with that element of the business?

DP: Nope. I was Operations Manager. That's all I was doing. I could be the figurehead, the fake lawyer so to speak, lead the basic meetings that our lawyer didn't need to do. If somebody was having a hard time with something, I would step in and figure out what the problem was.

SG: That's starting to interface with the people who you would eventually work with.

DP: I didn't mind interfacing with the clients. I just didn't want to be sucked into their lives....It was not my thing. I did sales years ago and part of this whole business, it's love, but it's the business of love. Which means, if you're in [the] business, you're in sales. In order to have a client, sell to a client, they become a part of your company so you can service them for their love needs. I didn't want to do sales. I didn't want to sell anybody anything. I was completely against it.

Essentially you’re working with them for a year. And what did I know about setting people up? I knew nothing, absolutely nothing. Again, I was so hard-headed, I didn't want to learn. Then, what happened, a nameless producer friend of mine needed help finding love. I went to Patty and said, “I've got a referral. Go ahead and take care of it." She said, "You take care of him. I'm making you take care of him. I'm going to help you and you're going to learn how to do this." And that was that.

SG: Walk me through what you do for a client. Tell me how it works.

DP: Once you're an active client of the company, our goal is to find you a match. We have a 99% success rate. Most of them find love within 3-5 dates, 3-5 girls. We're very good at what we do. It's a lot of comparison shopping, it's a lot of gut instinct. It's about knowing people's personality or kicks, watching everything that they do very carefully in the initial interview. We don't just accept any male client, or any female client into our club. We're not an escort service, and if you are coming to us like you're ordering a pizza and you want this, this, this, this, this...then, you know what, there's a reason that you're alone and you're probably going to be alone for the rest of your life. If you come with an open mind, let us do our job, we will be successful.

It's this bizarre science that's not a science. You either can do it, or you can't. There's not many people that can do it that are really good at it. Patty is really good at it. I'm really good at it. Chelsea is really good at it, and she's a completely different type of person than I am, and Rachel who works for the company as well, is very good at it. I've seen other people come and go...they just don't have it. You have to be a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a therapist, a counselor, all wrapped into one.

SG: When you take on a client, you're not just setting them up with people, you're answering questions for them, you're talking to them on the phone.

DP: Oh, absolutely, it's a whole process. We're not a dating service. We're not Match.com. We're a matchmaking company. You're paying for our personal time and attention. And once you're in a relationship our job doesn't stop. We're actually going through the whole process with you, from the beginning, making sure that you don't screw it up half way through, you don't leave the girl, or cheat on the girl, make sure the girl doesn't blow it. It's a long tiring, yet very, very rewarding process.

SG: Got it. So the men pay to be a part of the service.

DP: We are 100% free to women. Women join free. Men do have to pay, however, we do have a non-millionaire men application a person would fill out. Women can pay if they want personal attention, otherwise we kind of throw [their info] in our database until we're ready for them.

SG: How do you find the women?

DP: When Patty started this 10 years ago, she used to work at Great Expectations. She started going out and recruiting more girls. Then word kind of got out. She got more clients and then she started getting press. Magazines started calling. She was in Marie Claire, she was in Elle. Then [women] started submitting their stuff. We didn't have to do as many recruiting sessions. Then TV started picking it up, NBC, CBS, CNBC, she was interviewed on 20/20, 60 Minutes, all these different places. So now we have complete awareness for our Millionaire's Club brand. Then the TV show just legitimized everything. We've never been sued. We have this TV show, we have a radio show, we have a huge web presence. Everyone gives us press now. We don't have to do that at all...The television show is a one hour commercial for our business...and it works better than advertising because people think that they're learning about it as opposed to being sold.

We get 100s of girls a week [when] we're not airing live, and thousands when we are. Rachel, my fiancé and our Director of Registration, she's the gatekeeper. She's in charge, but she's one person. We are very selective on who we bring in. Will we take most of the applicants in? Absolutely, but the pool of people that we would actively use is a completely different thing.

SG: So TV you feel has really changed the business, made it a lot more dynamic.

DP: TV has been a huge, huge plus for us. It's had its drawbacks, the TV show it brought out the crazies. That's a little tiring. It's actually made our jobs harder...A lot of them are fame whores. They just want to be on the television show, and it's like, you shouldn't be contacting us.

SG: Clients come to you saying, I want to do your service but only if you make sure that I'm on the show?

DP: Yes, or the conversation always comes back to the TV show. Like, "I saw this guy on the TV show that did this, and that girl on the TV show did this and I think I should be on the TV show." [I'll say,] "OK, let's not talk about that, let's focus on you right now," and then the conversation ends up right back there. The TV show is great. We're not scripted, but at the same time a more significant part of our database of clients are guys that are a lot more sincere and a lot more genuine then you see on the TV show.

SG: Right, you've got to show the most extreme cases to make it most entertaining.

DP: Of course. And, the same thing goes with the women. If you look at the girls who are on the show, porn stars and models and actresses, crazy nut jobs and everything else, if you saw our real girls, it's just not as exciting.

SG: How has being on TV changed your life outside from work?

DP: Literally daily, I get recognized, someone comes up to me, which is bizarre. Because, coming from a place where the focus of energy was behind the camera, suddenly [to] find myself in front of the camera has been neat. I love it.

SG: You like it?

DP: Yeah, it doesn't bother me at all...I appreciate the people that watch the show. I appreciate bringing a certain amount of entertainment. It's awesome. I love it.


Catch The Billionaire Matchmaker on Bravo TV. For further info go to BravoTV.com/The-Millionaire-Matchmaker.

It seems odd to congratulate a just-married couple on crafting a story about heartbreak, breaking up and the end of the world, but that’s exactly what Taki Soma and Michael Avon Oeming did with the Dark Horse comic Rapture. The book was announced roughly the same time as their engagement, but the couple,... more

It seems odd to congratulate a just-married couple on crafting a story about heartbreak, breaking up and the end of the world, but that’s exactly what Taki Soma and Michael Avon Oeming did with the Dark Horse comic Rapture. The book was announced roughly the same time as their engagement, but the couple, who co-wrote and co-illustrated the book, managed to make both their relationship and the book work.

Oeming is the better known of the couple, best known as the artist of Powers, but Soma has worked for Top Cow, Image, Silent Devil and other publishers in addition to her webcomic “You’ll Never Die,” which Soma pulled from her website to retool. We chatted by e-mail about the book, the challenges of collaboration and how to make the end of the world a metaphor that’s more than just a metaphor.


ALEX DUEBEN: I’m curious how you describe Rapture. After reading it a couple times I think of it as a romance story in superhero clothes, but how do you think of it?

TAKI SOMA: I described it as a 'Post-apocalyptic superhero love story', so you're right on the money.

AD: How did Rapture start? Did you come up with the idea, was it Mike [Oeming]?

TS: Rapture started as Mike and I were driving across the country from Minnesota to New Jersey, eliminating the distance we had from each other. We came up with lots of story ideas staring at the road together; Rapture being one of them.

AD: What made this one the right idea to go forward with?

TS: Dark Horse. They liked this pitch above the others and of course, some of the other ideas were still not cooked up enough at the time to even pitch yet.

AD: How did the book end up at Dark Horse and how helpful were they in terms of both lending a helping hand and staying out of your way?

TS: Dark Horse is great. I am so very happy that Rapture was put out by such a respectful publisher. Dave Land was our editor and he was great at keeping us on schedule but giving us a lot of freedom as well. I would work with him and Dark Horse again, absolutely.

AD: Had the two of you worked on anything together before this?

TS: Not anything published. We work together often, relying on good, honest feedback.

AD: Mike likes to collaborate in a way a lot of people at his level who both write and draw don’t necessarily. Was it always something that the two of you were going to work on together?

TS: Yes, although he's experienced a longer career and much success, he's always been a fan of my work. He was the one who insisted that we work together, which turned out wonderfully. He brought me out of my shell a little bit that I'm very thankful for.

AD: Any hesitations about working together? I mean it’s hard work just being in a relationship -- as Rapture makes clear.

TS: I think there were hesitations as first, we weren't sure if we were strong enough to be a couple and work together so closely -- and turns out that we didn't have anything to worry about. He's one of the easiest person to work with and I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

AD: You both wrote it and then you did the layouts and he did the finishes. What was the process of putting it together like? Were you both in sync?

TS: Man, it went so smoothly that I don't think it was fair. We are similar creatures but what one lacks, the other excels. So the process went step-by-step; rough draft, re-write, re-write, tightening (we'd just take over the last draft, then pass on, and so forth) I would then do a simple layout to get the story-telling aspect and pacing figured out, then he would either re-draw the page or scan the layout and draw over it.

AD: I’m curious about the layouts because obviously you wanted to craft something that felt like your work but you were also drawing it for Mike to finish and knowing his work, were there moments or scenes where you were designing the page for him or times when it felt like one of you more than the other?

TS: For the most part, Mike followed the layouts pretty close, but of course, if he thinks of a better pacing or panels, he would go ahead and change it. There is a lot of trust between us and I don't feel as if he's disregarded my layout because he doesn't like it, he simply thought of a better way, which I appreciate.

AD: The Biblical analogies, both in the title and in the text itself, was that idea there from the beginning or when did you decide to incorporate that idea?

TS: Yes, I believe it was there from the beginning. Early in our relationship, he asked me what type of stories I enjoyed most and I told him apocalyptic-disaster-zombie-desperate-action-superhero-romance really gets me... so... yeah, I think it came from that conversation.

AD: Cannibals seem to be the new big thing in post-apocalyptic fiction. Why are the major villains in the book cannibals and why do you think they’ve been so popular of late?

TS: Funny you ask that. At first, the cannibals were going to be zombies or vampires or something like that. I  thought 'magic' or 'bio-metamorphosis' as too much of a stretch on top of a biblical-esque background. Cannibals just made sense because there will, or should be shortage of food and we all get hungry. Besides that, I read a lot about serial killing cannibals for a hobby, they are so fascinating.

AD: Was it odd that as you’re engaged and then after you get married you’re working on a comic together that’s really about breaking up?

TS: Heh, the announcement of Rapture happened the same time as our engagement. We thought it was hilarious! But Rapture is really about the hardship and the lessons we learned from having our hearts broken before. We saw it clearly as we got more serious and we wanted to share that knowledge. It is easy to love, but it's hard work that requires our attention for as long as you're in that loving relationship. 

AD: The nostalgic looks back at the relationship are done in a very different style. What was the thinking behind making it look so different and what kind of look were you going for?

TS: We simply wanted the flashbacks to be very clear to the audience that it was not the present.

I started this method to visually separate the time frames in You’ll Never Die webcomic and Mike really wanted to incorporate his watercolor pages; voila!

AD: I loved how in many of the fight sequences there are a lot of layouts where you use a single page image with the characters moving through the space and conveying the action and time that way rather than by breaking it down into panels.

TS: I saw it more like a montage. Fight scenes are great, but really, Evelyn was very limited to a certain fight style because of the spear that I felt it might look redundant if we showed every kick and slash. With a splash, it felt grand and complicated without actually walking the audience through the same repeated movements.

AD: I don’t want to give away the ending, but there’s a certain deus ex machina nature to it and I’m wondering what was the thinking behind it and how it fits for you?

TS: Sure, that's pretty fair. The apocalyptic state the world was left in was meant to be a metaphor, a background for Evelyn and Gil to express their state of being. Hence, the world turned with how they related to one another.

TS: I’ll admit the first time I read it the ending kind of annoyed me, but the second time around, I was really carried away by the emotional arc of the story and it felt very honest. How much of a challenge was it in terms of making sure that the end of the world never felt like a metaphor and that for all the action, it was all about the relationship?

TS: I think the supporting characters and their situations really carried a lot of weight to make the world feel genuine. The General and his conflict with the local cannibals whose roster included his own brother, or old man, whose eccentricity, kindness and honesty really turned up a world we can all relate to (whom by the way, is based on my father who passed away shortly before Rapture began production) And who can forget Adam, the child villain? He was so tragic, because he was truly innocent but his youth was corrupted by the powerful spear which was supposed to make him a champion.

AD: How do you think the story would have differed if you and Mike had each written and drawn it solo - how would each of your versions been different from Rapture?

TS: It wouldn't have been as honest, I think. This was us expressing the heartbreaks we've endured and learned from. Really, it's a very personal story.

AD: I really enjoyed your old webcomic You’ll Never Die, which other than Rapture is how people probably know you. I know you took it down. I hope you’re planning on doing something with it.

TS: I did take it down just for that reason. I am shopping it around as a series as well as a few other ones I've been cooking up. Thank you for asking!

AD: So You’ll Never Die will be returning in book form -- hopefully soon. Anything else you’re working on?

TS: I've got a couple more pitches cooking besides You’ll Never Die. And of course, Mike and I have a number of series we want to see it to fruition. All in good time, I hope!!!

Rapture is available from Dark Horse

'You're only paranoid if they're not out to get you,' is an adage that's self-evidently true. With that as a given, Massive Attack mainstay 3D (a.k.a. Robert Del Naja) has every right to feel more than a little suspicious and mistrustful, especially when it comes to matters of... more

'You're only paranoid if they're not out to get you,' is an adage that's self-evidently true. With that as a given, Massive Attack mainstay 3D (a.k.a. Robert Del Naja) has every right to feel more than a little suspicious and mistrustful, especially when it comes to matters of internet privacy, security and surveillance.

After the FBI passed on a list of 7,300 UK credit card numbers associated with various porn sites (some legal and some of an illicit nature) to UK authorities, 3D was swept up in the excessively wide net of an indiscriminate police sting in 2003. Though allegations of any wrongdoing were unfounded, the repercussions were severe for the outspoken graffiti artist, vocalist and music producer. His home was raided, and all his computers and hard drives were confiscated for several months. To compound the situation, despite the fact that no charges directly relating to the police operation were ever filed, the furor that surrounded the investigation and baseless accusations (which were leaked and sensationally reported by a tabloid newspaper) meant that touring plans to promote Massive Attack's fourth studio album 100th Window had to be put on hold. The situation was all the more ironic considering the title of that album referred to a book that exposed the flaws in computer security and the rampant misuse of information in the internet age.

That unfortunate episode however was not the only incident that might have put 3D on the various "person of interest" lists around the world. He has been extremely open and vocal about his disapproval of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, going as far as designing and funding a series of anti-war ads which were published in the NME (with cohort Damon Albarn). Furthermore, having made several forays to the Middle East with the band, 3D has frequently voiced his concern for the plight of the Palestinian people, and in 2007 put the issue at the top of Massive Attack's political agenda with a series of sold out benefit concerts for the Hoping Foundation (an organization which aids children of the troubled state).

These distractions coupled with increasing demand from filmmakers for scores and soundtracks, meant that a new full-length Massive Attack release took a little longer than expected to manifest. However the wait - and the adversity - has paid off. Original band member Daddy G (a.k.a. Grant Marshall), who'd been absent from the project for several years, came back into the fold, and the resulting fifth studio album, Heligoland (released last month), debuted at #46 on the Billboard Top 200, giving Massive Attack their highest US chart position to date.

SuicideGirls caught up with 3D while he was in LA on a brief promotional trip ahead of Massive Attack's first North American tour in 4 years. During our phone conversation, he spoke about the new CD (which features contributions from Damon Albarn, Hope Sandoval, Martina Topley-Bird, and longtime Massive Attack collaborator Horace Andy, among others), and shared his thoughts on the increasingly pointless posturing of British and American party politics, the inherent dangers of our heavily surveilled states, and the futility of exporting such a culture to the Middle East.

Nicole Powers: Where are you calling in from?

3D: I'm at KCRW actually. I'm literally around the corridors making a nuisance of myself.

NP: Did you record an in-studio session there?

3D: No, we didn't actually play. We just put some tunes on and talked a lot of rubbish, you know, very, very British.

NP: Ah, talking bollocks, us Brits are very good at that.

3D: Exactly. I pride myself in my ability to talk absolute rubbish - especially live on radio.

NP: It's a gift. It's like we're all born with a PhD in bollocks in Britain aren't we?

3D: [laughs] Yeah. I've still got some education to go in the area in the field but I'm definitely applying myself to it.

NP: So I guess we should talk some bollocks about your new album shouldn't we? Especially since it was several years in the making.

3D: Yes. Absolutely. Well to be honest, it's one of those things where it's been a long time between the two albums but in fact the actual process of putting this album together probably only [took] about 7 or 8 months. There was lots of discarded material and lots of distractions, soundtrack work, Best Ofs, Meltdown [Festival], and a lot of gigs in between.

NP: There were all sorts of rumors going around as this album was being recorded, lots of reports of collaborations that people heard about but that didn't ultimately make the cut. When you finally came to figure out exactly what you were going to put on the album, in your mind was there a common thread with the tracks you chose?

3D: There wasn't a common thread really. Each track was a captured moment depending on who we were working with. I think it started to feel like it was a collection of tracks that had a relationship with each other, because of maybe the sentimentality or the sonic feel, then it started to become an album I guess. Before that point everything was just an individual moment, and there was no collective [theme or thread].

NP: Because it does have a very different feel. It's more gentle and earthier than some of your previous work.

3D: I don't know about gentle, I don't think it's got a gentleness to it. I think it's got definitely a more organic feel. It depends how you listen to it. If you play it on a certain system you'll get more aggression out of it, and if you play it in a more subdued way you'll definitely get more of the softer atmospherics. But in terms of production it's very stripped back. I was very keen on not doing what we did with 100th Window, and making the contrast between the electronic and the acoustic very obvious.

NP: When you were writing the tracks though, were you still constructing them electronically? Or were you doing things like picking up guitars to write?

3D: A bit or both, it's always a bit of both. But I think in the end in terms of the final mixes and the way we shaped it, it was about highlighting the contrast between the elements. 100th Window was very much about this amalgamation of everything joining, and eventually the process was so extreme that you couldn't tell if there was a string part if it was electronic or natural. [There were] lots of organic parts that ended up sounding very electronic. It became a whole world of different processes, and we wanted to do something a bit different because we've had that experience so we wanted to do something else.

NP: Talk about a couple of your favorite tracks from the album, and the lyrics and the meaning behind them.

3D: I think a couple of my favorite tracks are maybe "Psyche" and "Atlas Air." "Atlas Air" was very difficult. It was a track called "Marrakesh" and it had about ten different identities. We finally discarded all of them and started a new one. It was only connected to its original self by the name on the file on the computer where the files were located but it became a completely new piece of work. In the end, after lots of fucking around with tracks that weren't working, it came together quite instantly and quick.

Lyrically, because of its transformations it got quite mixed up. At one point it was a song about falling in love with an internet porn star and having this complete relationship with someone online only, nothing physical, purely electronic. Then it became a song about rendition. The two demos I did initially for it I discarded. When we constructed a new piece of music I came away from the studio and completely adlibbed the vocal but I still used the lyrics from both the demos on the same bit of paper and threw it all down in one hour. It kind of really worked even though essentially it was quite distorted.

NP: Right, they're two very disparate subjects.

3D: Yeah. Even though I was starting at the porn angle and going for the more political angle in the end, there's still a few lines that hang in there from it that totally had a different meaning. It's an interesting broken collage, which was finally finished I guess, if you ever finish anything.

And "Psyche," a track which Martina [Topley-Bird] wrote the words for, I love because it's like that flittering of the sun on your eyelids when you're driving in a car, going through light through trees. That kind of strange memory of all the summers you've ever had. It can often make you feel sort of sad and quite lost and lonely at times when it comes. But there are times when you get that flickering light, and you actually feel alright with that. The fact that everything's going by and these moments will never be repeated, but that's OK because you're enjoying it for what it is. You actually get to experience it in the present, and don't worry about the past. That song has that feel to me. It's a song about life and growing up, but it makes it feel alright, you know? It's one of those things that makes you feel alright about it all.

NP: So do you feel grown up now?

3D: [laughs] No. I've never felt grown up really to be honest. No, definitely not.

NP: One of the things I love about you guys is that you're not scared of wearing your politics on your sleeve and standing up for the stuff that you believe in. And I think that, especially in America, so many bands are scared to do that now because they're worried about the repercussions, of sacrificing radio play or TV appearances. But without that element it does mean much of the music we're fed is trivial and meaningless.

3D: We came into KCRW with that very thought in mind. The track I played at the start of the session was "Molotov Cocktail Party" by Vivi Bach, who's a Danish actress from the '60s and '70s. It's this track she did with Dietmar [Schönherr] and it was a '60s ironic song about activism...I wanted to use it as a slight statement about the fact that that whole aspect has been lost and has withered really. It's very hard to form groups or take a action because as soon as you communicate electronically they're shut down.

It's very difficult in this day and age. In Britain surveillance culture is insane - cameras everywhere, emails spied on. Since you've had a Labour left wing government in power it's actually got more and more totalitarian than it ever has been under the Tories. But I don't know if a change of government in the UK would actually change that now. I think it's endemic in the political governing system now to basically spy on the population, and to monitor and track the population, whether it's through their credit cards, their SIM cards in their phones, their GPS positions, their activities, their profiles, it's just really, really strange. It's colonizing everything I would expect to happen in the future but it probably isn't as exciting and science fiction as we thought it was going to be, just a little bit more mundane and depressing.

NP: Labour has been a bit like a wolf in sheep's clothing with regards to the Big Brother stuff. They've implemented policies that the Conservatives, had they tried to introduce them, would have never been able to have got through. With the Conservatives, people would have had their guard up for this kind of thing, but because it was warm and fuzzy Labour that introduced these measures people had their guard down. So they've actually been able to go further than the Conservatives would have been able to with regards to increasing surveillance and decreasing an individual's right to privacy. If the Conservatives had done some of the stuff Labour has got away with, the British population would have been up in arms about it.

3D: I think so, I'd agree. And I don't know without Blair if we'd have been involved with the invasion of Iraq at all. If it had of been a Tory leader, whether they'd have supported it, if that person would have had the power or the personality, or whether it was an inevitability forged in the corridors of power around the world anyway. Whether it was just going to happen, there was going to be a regime change because this was the start of a new century of change and this was just one of the areas they wanted to change. Whether, no matter which party was in power, it would have made any difference. But you're definitely right about the way Labour has been able to smuggle lots of policies and laws under the radar.

Ironically it shows how pointless electioneering party politics really is. Because if Labour had been fighting for power they would have opposed all the laws they've just implemented strictly as a matter of rote. So you think what kind of system are we in where the actual point of politics is lost. All politicians now are just electioneering, and no one actually believes in their own policies.

It's quite difficult. And I look at kids, they're so reluctant to engage in politics, students in the UK don't really have any activism left in them. They're just quite happy with convenience food and everything served up to them in a way that's as simple as possible because there's so much distraction and crap around to fill your mind with.

NP: Well it is easy to be apathetic when you don't see the fruits of change. I mean people had such great expectations for Obama but he's not really gone about trying to create change with the fervor that he campaigned for it.

3D: I was a big supporter of his from when I first saw him interviewed as a senator. I thought, wow, that guy, he looks like the next president of the United States - especially considering the two terms of office of George Bush. I thought this is definitely going to be what would be seen as an antidote. But with my limited education in American politics through West Wing and what I read, I do understand that it's almost impossible to implement a lot of the changes he [promised]. Then again, with the healthcare bill, which is being put to the vote, as was pointed out in the West Wing, that's one of the hottest potatoes in all American politics. He's gone with that, and I guess I can't argue with that. He's delivered on the promise even though he's not really helped deliver any promises in terms of legislating peace in the Middle East or shutting down Guantanamo and stopping drones from killing civilians on the Pakistani border. I think in all those cases it just initiates more people into militancy because of their own tragic loss.

The problem with that sort of thing in the UK and America is that we just don't really seriously consider the lives of other humans with an important regard. When you see [an incident] like the missile strike in Afghanistan which killed 30 civilians, if that had been in the UK, the country would go to war. That sort of action would be an act of war. For us, as far as we're concerned, it's just a sad loss of life and we shrug it off. It's the nature of the world we live in I think unfortunately.

This death by remote control thing, which is the way war is being fought...I thought when I saw with the Israeli Cast Lead Operation in Gaza last year how sterile and cynical that was in the sense that the amount of Palestinian deaths versus Israeli deaths was so grossly disproportionate that it couldn't be considered a war of any sort. And the weapons used were very modern, very automatic, very remote control, and a lot of weapons that apparently were not even meant to be in use like the phosphorus [munitions]. They call it a theater of war, it's almost used as some kind of training ground for even greater wars around the world, and those in the Gaza Strip are just stuck and endure it.

It's a shame because we've been to Israel twice and they asked us to come back this year. We said, "No," we're definitely not going to play in Israel. We've played in Beirut before, we've played in Tel Aviv before, but not while people are being strangled economically, socially, culturally, we're not going to come and play Israel. You can't PR the recent actions of your politicians out of the red by putting on cultural events. It isn't going to work. It's similar to engaging the South Africans in sport during the apartheid years. It's a crazy situation.

NP: So where are you touring to support this album?

3D: We've been everywhere. We've been all over Europe last year, Australia, New Zealand, we're coming back to the States in May, festivals, Japan.

NP: You say you're not able to tour the Middle East this time around, but are there any places you want to put on your tour itinerary because of your political agenda?

3D: When we went to the Middle East before it was between the two intifadas and it was an interesting time to engage in the process. You know, you go there, meet the people, get their side of the story. Now that would be impossible to do. We also went to Beirut and played in an amazing set of Roman ancient monuments in a place called Baalbek on the Syrian border, which was a great experience. It's just wonderful. They're very, very interesting places to be. It's very difficult though to take what we do out there. There's limitations with security. I want to go to Beirut this year but there's no way it's going to happen you know.

NP: It's interesting, I'm friends with a band from Iran, and in Iran you can't even make rock music without the threat of arrest. As adults in the West we have the luxury of either being political or not, but in the Middle East the kids that are growing up there don't have the luxury of not being political. They don't have the luxury of enjoying music for music's sake, or the simple pleasure of enjoying it in public with their fellow countrymen. In that region, if you're listening to or playing Western-style music, you're making a political statement whether you want to or not.

3D: Absolutely. It's that whole thing of why did our forefathers fight in the wars? To give us this freedom, which is now being totally eroded by their descendants. It's really a crying shame. Like I said, we have the luxury of choosing, whereas most people don't have the luxury of choice at all.

It's funny, I mean you look at the Iranian situation, and the recent upheaval after the elections. The way that [news] was shared was amazing. The fact that the rest of the world could see first hand, minute by minute what was really happening was an amazing thing. But ironically that's exactly the sort of thing that our government is trying to crack down on - on letting us have that freedom. Yet that freedom, the liberation of the internet, is expounded on as being one of the positives, helping share news and share injustice with the world. Yet if you actually look at the laws that are being passed and the attitudes of those in power, they're trying to completely control that freedom themselves in their own country. So what's the point of going to the Middle East to export our culture and agenda in the first place?

Heligoland is available online and in stores now. Massive Attack's US Tour kicks off at Terminal 5 in NYC on May 11. For full details go to: MassiveAttack.com.

Floria Sigismondi is the director of one of the most anticipated rock biopics in recent memory: The Runaways, which stars Kristen Stewart (as vocalist/guitarist Joan Jett) and Dakota Fanning (as frontwoman Cherie Currie). Known for her trademark hyper-surreal style (as seen in the music videos she’s... more

Floria Sigismondi is the director of one of the most anticipated rock biopics in recent memory: The Runaways, which stars Kristen Stewart (as vocalist/guitarist Joan Jett) and Dakota Fanning (as frontwoman Cherie Currie). Known for her trademark hyper-surreal style (as seen in the music videos she’s directed for Marilyn Manson, Fiona Apple, David Bowie, Christina Aguilera, and The White Stripes), the challenge for Floria with The Runaways was to create an authentic representation of the trailblazing all-girl band and the era they exploded (and imploded) in. Though a seasoned photographer and video director, this is the first time Floria has helmed a feature film project. It’s also the first time she’s worked as a writer, having taken on the formidable task of transforming Cherie’s excellent biography, Neon Angel, a definitive account of the life (and death) of the band into a screenplay. During a press day held at a Los Angeles hotel, SuicideGirls sat down with Floria to find out how she set about capturing the essence of The Runaways on film.

Nicole Powers: What attracted you to The Runaways' story?

Floria Sigismondi: One of the aspects I loved was how young the girls were and that they were girls doing things they weren't supposed to do. That kind of really calls to the rebel in me...It's interesting because they were obviously up against it all the time, being girls, playing more aggressive music, you know.

NP: When you came to the project, Cherie Currie's Neon Angel book had been optioned, but then you set about turning that book into a screenplay. How did you approach that process?

FS: I'd interviewed [Runaways manager and producer] Kim Fowley, I'd interviewed Joan and Cherie, and then some people around them in the scene. Then I'd done a lot of research finding interviews of the time. There was a lot of material actually. It just kind of reminded me how explosive they were. I started to see what was important to everybody and how they remembered it, and then tried to make that into something.

NP: You had a lot of input from Cherie through her book, and Joan, who is one of the movie's producers, but did you talk with any of the other band members?

FS: No, because the contracts and everything were in place before I came on board, so I focused on the two of them.

NP: Kim has some amazing dialog in the movie. I understand a lot of that was directly lifted from tapes that you listened to.

FS: Tapes, mostly interviews...It was quite specific, he was talking about the girls. He's just got an amazing way with words doesn't he?

NP: He certainly does. He asked me if I was a sex worker in the corridor downstairs.

FS: Yes, he asked her [indicating an assistant who was also in the room] if she knew where the heroin was, even though he doesn't do drugs. [laughs]

NP: I guess it's the way he likes to mix things up with provocative questions. Kristen was saying how when she asked Joan about how she'd react to that kind stuff, Joan told her she'd just laugh it off. But with Cherie, she just took Kim's comments very much to heart and internalized them.

FS: I think that being plucked out of her family at such a young age - both of them come from broken families...That's what I was drawn to, how different they reacted, you know. They called them salt and pepper, they were so different. Joan also comes from a broken family but her reactions to things are very different than Cherie's. Cherie's reaction to Kim, maybe looking at him as a father figure because she was plucked out of the family early on, but Joan didn't look at him as this father figure but more as a friend. So their reactions to those kind of aggressive comments or things that would come out of his mouth, they reacted completely different.

NP: That's one of the things I enjoy from the film. It's this great illustration of how people can go though the same things and can be affected by them in entirely different ways. So much of that is how you choose to let things affect you, and you really see that in the movie, how Joan let Kim's words motivate her, while Cherie allows him to hurt her.

FS: That's what [Joan and Kim] would do, they would get each other excited, where I think Cherie's perspective was from a more sensitive place.

NP: An insecure place.

FS: Yeah. Because I think her family breaking up, it really affected her deeply.

NP: Also, Cherie had only just started singing, so she was insecure, whereas Joan had been playing guitar for a lot longer.

FS: But imagine, Cherie's plucked out of this club because of what she looks likes. So how can you have confidence if you're singing for the first time?

NP: Yeah. It's completely understandable insecurity.

FS: That's what I thought was a fascinating story too, how she gets chosen to be the forefront figure of this band. It's amazing actually.

NP: How did you pick what aspects of The Runaways story to include? Obviously it's such a complicated story and you can't put everything in a movie. Were there any vignettes that you would have loved to have included but just couldn't work into the thread of the story you wanted to tell?

FS: Yeah there were. I can't remember what they were, but there were a lot. What I did is I picked moments that drew me. It was almost like making a collage. I figured out that it really was about Cherie and Joan, this parallel story. It starts as you get to meet them - as they get their identity. You realize what's important to them.

Both of them grab onto a musical icon. Joan to Suzi Quatro, she sees something in her that feels like a kindred spirit, something that she identifies with. And Cherie with Bowie. He's more androgynous, with a more way out there kind of look. Then they come together and there's this really great explosion that happens with the forming of this band. Like in any [successful] band, there's some chemistry that works. Then they come apart.

Once I found that, that it was about this relationship coming apart and the breaking-up of the band, everything kind of lined up with that and if it didn't it went out. Once I grabbed that, once I found that and thought I'm going to go on that ride, then it was easy for me to go, what do I need, and what doesn't work now because it's a sidestory.

NP: You begin the movie in a very gritty way. You depict Cherie's character as starting her period on the way to a David Bowie concert. Though Cherie talks about going to the Bowie concert in her book, and how life-changing it was for her, the whole period thing is not lifted from there. Why did you choose to open the film in such a way?

FS: Because it was about girls, and it's a coming of age story, and it's about finding your identity. It's at a time when I think women start to pay attention to their bodies, and how people react them. You're coming into a confused but exciting time in their lives. I kind of wanted to say all that, and to say it's just a girls' story.

NP: Obviously Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning are very familiar names, but the cast also includes an intriguing newcomer to acting, Riley Keough, Lisa Marie Presley's daughter (by Danny Keough) who plays Cherie's sister Marie.

FS: I think she did a phenomenal job. She hadn't acted before in anything and I had to force her to do it. I had this feeling. I saw a picture of her, and although they don't look identical, the photographer in me could see something. It was that side profile that really was similar. There was a real genuine intuition because she's not schooled. It felt very real to me. Obviously it was a gamble but I wanted to take it, and it paid off. I thought she did a great job.

NP: You just saw her photo in a magazine?

FS: Yeah. Forced her to come and meet me. I had her come by and meet Dakota in my studio in my garage. I was just playing with their faces, and playing with their hair and playing with their complexion. Because in two separate photographs you don't know what that's going to be like until you put them together. So I just got them in a room and played with them a little bit.

NP: How much did you rehearse the cast when you were getting ready to film?

FS: I didn't do too much. I really love having magic happen on the set and I didn't want it to feel too old. I found I wanted to do not so much rehearsal but just throw knowledge at them - the history, what the girls were like, and their personalities. Joan's more, "I want to keep the band together," and Cherie's more, "This doesn't feel good." Those kinds of things I fed them constantly.

I'd collected books and books, 4-inch binders, maybe ten of them. I had three years just of research. I covered a wall about the size of this room with photographs from the beginning of the script to the end of the script, and how the transformation would take place. So you can see the innocent girl going through the steps, and then Cherie Currie at the end of her rope, the wear and tear of her experience on her.

NP: Did you do a similar thing with story cards, to help clarify the arc while you were writing the script?

FS: Yeah I did do that, I did do that for a while. Seeing what went with what, what stuck and what didn't. I'm a very visual person so I would always have an image with the headline.

NP: You're known for your music videos and for your photography, so the writing was kind of a new foray for you.

FS: Yeah, it was very new. I hadn't done it before. The producers asked me if I wanted to write, [or] if I wanted to somebody else to write it. And I thought, I'll write it.

NP: So you had your own Cherie Currie moment there.

FS: I did, I had my own Cherie Currie moment. That's fantastic! There's a lot of parallels, when you really start going into things...It's funny. I did have my own Cherie Currie moment, but what it did for me is it made me really know the story. I did my own research, so once I got on the set I kind of knew these characters inside out, what motivated them. It really was just part of my homework the writing part of it.

NP: What's the next project that you're working on?

FS: I don't know. I'm kind of drawn to fiction, just something different that doesn't maybe revolve around real happenings.

NP: I can imagine making films of true stories are much harder, since there's real people, real facts and real feelings involved.

FS: Real feelings -- and they're alive. I guess that comes with the real feelings. Yes, it is difficult, because your mind thinks, "I can take care of that problem by doing this." But that's saying a lot about that person that's not necessarily [true]. So it's about trying to find that line that works with you as a creative person telling the story, and works with the real happenings. It's about trying to find the true essence. That's why I call it the true essence, it's not necessarily a biographical documentary, it's a movie.

NP: It's a movie and not a documentary, but at the same time, this is the biggest representation of their legacy, which is a huge responsibility.

FS: Yeah...It's like a puzzle, you know, you're putting things in and taking them out...Like you said, it represents other people's lives so it was definitely a fine line to dance.

NP: So now you're ready for a nice easy work of fiction.

FS: Yes!


The Runaways movie hits theaters on limited release March 19, and is slated to go on wide release April 9.

For her forthcoming release, We Are Born, the darling of downtempo, Sia Furler, hits a distinctly upbeat groove. Indeed, the six tracks we've heard so far are decidedly funky. Just don't, whatever you do, use the F-word in the singer/songwriter's presence - it's very likely to irk... more

For her forthcoming release, We Are Born, the darling of downtempo, Sia Furler, hits a distinctly upbeat groove. Indeed, the six tracks we've heard so far are decidedly funky. Just don't, whatever you do, use the F-word in the singer/songwriter's presence - it's very likely to irk her.

Having come to the attention of the KCRW-listening, latte-sipping music intelligentsia thanks to her turns with English post-trip-hop outfit Zero 7, for a while Sia was inadvertently defined by what was initially intended as a very limited, no-strings-attached guest spot with the lush lounge combo. Thanks to the success of Zero 7's debut album Simple Things (2001), and their follow up release, When It Falls (2004), and the numerous international tours that followed, Sia's personal brand became synonymous with the downtempo pigeonhole Zero 7 prominently occupied.

Seeking to capitalize on Sia's credentials in the 90 bpm & under department, record label execs understandably pressurized her to continue in a similar vein with her solo work, despite a personal preference for something a little less languid. It was therefore no surprise when Sia's evocative track "Breathe Me," became her first breakout solo song, thanks to its prominent use at the end of the final episode of Six Feet Under. Indeed the inspired TV license earned Colour The Small One, the album on which the song was originally featured, a long overdue release in the US in 2006 (the CD was released in the UK 2 years earlier). And while her next solo album, Some People Have Real Problems, helped bridge the gap between the music Sia was expected to make and the music she wanted to make, it's her latest offering, We Are Born, that has finally allowed the Australian born (but currently New York based) artist to come into her own.

SuicideGirls caught up with Sia by phone find out how she got her groove back, and to get the 411 on her aversion to the F-word.

NP: So you've been teasing us, so far we've only heard a handful of tracks off the new album.

SF: I know, I'm sorry. It's really weird. We've been very mysterious about it. I think that's because we don't really know what we're doing. [laughs]

NP: There's an honest answer.

SF: Because we've got this tour scheduled and of course, you know, we'd had our plan to put the record out before the tour, and now we're shooting the video for the first single. The album is definitely finished. It's been finished, it's been mastered, but we've had a bit of a bidding war between a couple of labels to license this album.

NP: Oh nice.

SF: Yeah, which is awesome, but we're just finalizing all of the paperwork so I actually still haven't signed to this major record label, even though we're proceeding as if I have. They're all doing the work that they would be doing if they were my label but I think that everyone's a little bit tentative to really either send the shit out, or to make an announcement about when it's going to be released.

NP: Right.

SF: I feel that's what the label and my management are doing right now, they're just trying to fucking turn it around really. It's already been pushed from March to April [and after this interview back to June]. They want a long lead time to do all of their ass kissing, you know. It's a tricky business.

NP: I thought it might be because they were frightened to give you access to your own album in case you tweeted it out.

SF: [laughs] Well actually, I've been warned. And even before all of these interviews they're like, "Don't talk about the album. Don't tell too much about the album. Just tell 'em a little bit about it." It's like, "Why?" And they're like, "No, this is about the tour." I'm like, "Oh! OK! You sure?" I think basically, I don't really know, but I guess maybe they're trying to create some mystique, considering I'm like the dichotomy of that.

NP: Well it's a nice turn of events because I remember when I last spoke to you, you were talking about how you couldn't even get Colour The Small One released in America until Six Feet Under used the track "Breathe Me" in their final episode.

SF: Yeah. Nobody cared. Errol [Kolosine] from Astralwerks was the only person who cared. He put it out and did exactly what this new label is doing right now. He just proceeded as if we were signed, even though we were still working out all our paperwork and all of the little tiny details.

I mean [We Are Born] is pretty awesome. I know that it's my strongest commercial record yet and I think that's probably why I'm not surprised that now we have a lot of takers. Because Colour The Small One, there was no radio singles on there. I mean, I understand how the machinery works now and it's not surprising to me that this one is more appealing.

NP: And your last album, Some People Have Real Problems, was firmly in the genre of quirky...

SF: [laughs]

NP: ...In a wonderful way. But when you go to a record store, unfortunately there isn't a quirky section.

SF: [laughs] It's weird actually, 'cause my record before Colour The Small One was like R&B, it was called "urban" in England. So you'd find my first record, which was called, Healing Is Difficult, in the urban section. Then you'd find Colour The Small One in the urban section, and like my ten fans, that bothered them immensely. They wrote to me when I had like eighty members on my message board eight years ago and I knew them all by sight and by name. That was the thing that peeved them the most, that Colour The Small One was in the urban section. It's weird.

NP: This album, it's kind of funky. You've gone funky!

SF: Yeah. I mean it's hilarious that you use that word because it was kind of a running joke that nobody is allowed to use the word "funk." [laughs]

NP: Ooops!

SF: For some reason it irks me, but I'm just going to have to accept that maybe I'm funky.

NP: What's wrong with the F-word?

SF: I don't know. I guess probably it irks because when I first started out it was like the early '90s and I was in a band that we called "a jazz / hip-hop / funk fusion explosion." Like I did trip-hop fusion, like every possible genre that was cheesy at the time. I mean I do love old funk, [but] I guess I've never really been into new funk.

I think I'm scared of being new funk. I'm a big fan of The Funk Brothers and Motown and all that sort of shit, so I don't know why it irks me, that word. Maybe it was just growing up in the '90s in Australia. Australia's never really moved on. If you go to a restaurant or a cafe´, or you're in an elevator, they're still playing Rebirth Of The Cool and Galliano and all that sort of new funk, so maybe it's just that.

It's way more uptempo this whole record. There's still a few weepies on there, you know. There's some weepies for the peepies. But I wanted to make a fun record. I want to go on tour and have some fun.

A lot of these tracks I wrote like five years ago with Greg Kirsten. At the time everyone said it would be career suicide if I put out this uptempo record. Because I'd just done the Zero 7 stuff and put out Colour The Small One. They were like, "You're known as a downtempo artist and your fans will be confused." I was like, "What fans? What are you talking about?"

I wanted to put it out and I was like, "Beck can do it. Why can't I?" And they were like, "He's an established artist and you're a nobody." So I put out Some People Have Real Problems, kind of like as a band aid to those people in my life, advisors and colleagues and people that said I would be committing career suicide.

I put out that album and then "Buttons" off that one did well so I guess it gave them the feeling that it would be OK for me to make the music that I wanted to make now. It was confusing because my first record was R&B and then I got kind of pigeon-holed after the Zero 7 stuff with my downtempo vibe, so it's nice for me to be able to make the music that I've always wanted to. I think they were albums that I needed to make, but this is one that I wanted to make.

NP: So where and when was this album recorded?

SF: Last July in L.A. in Eagle Rock. I recorded it with my usual band plus Greg Kirsten on keyboards and Nick Valensi from The Strokes on guitar.

NP: Very cool.

SF: Yeah. I love it. I like listening to it. I'm excited. I've never listened to my albums after I've finished making them before, and this one I've listened to three times.

NP: Talk about a couple of the tracks that are close to your heart.

SF: Well "The Fight" is my favorite song on the whole record. The title of the album comes from the opening lyric of that song, We Are Born. I don't know why I love that song so much, but it just feels like a victory song. There's something victorious about it. I guess I'm just really attached to it for that reason.

Then "Clap Your Hands" I just think is a really fun for dancing around. It's a pretty shallow song. It's a romantic comedy movie song. Then I guess my favorite ballad on the album is "I'm In Here." I wrote that with Sam Dixon, who I wrote a bunch of the Christina Aguilera stuff with. Those are probably my favorite songs on the record. Oh yeah, "Big Girl, Little Girl." I like that one too.

NP: You mention Christina Aguilera. You've been working with her?

SF: Yeah. I have. We wrote five songs. Four of them are going on her album and one of them is in her new movie, Burlesque.

NP: Wow. How did that come about?

SF: She's totally awesome. It's a really good collaboration. Many years ago I tried to ask her if she wanted to duet with me on "Death By Chocolate" which is on Some People Have Real Problems. My manger at the time, she wrote her an email. She cc'd me on it and said, "Sia is a big fan of Christine Aguilera." She misspelled Christina's name. I remember thinking, "Well there goes that collaboration."

I never heard back from them and it didn't surprise me at all. Then maybe a year ago, David, my current manager, was like, "Well we've got a call from Christina Aguilera's management and she's interested in writing with you, and they want to set up a call." So we tried to set up a call and it took a while to get us both online at the same time. Then eventually, I think it was on the try number three, she called and I was put through about three different people. First it was David, her manager, then it was her assistant, and then it was her husband and then it was her. It was really funny. Every time I'd be like, "Christina?" Then a male voice would come on the phone. Eventually, she was like, [puts on a high voice] "Yeah!"

She just said, "I'd like to step into your world." I said, "So you don't want me to write with your co-writer, you want me to bring one of my own?" And she said, "Yeah." So I decided who I would want out of my friends to make a million dollars, and I chose Sam Dixon, who is my bass player and who I write a lot of songs with. We've been friends for seventeen years, and I thought I would like him to make a million dollars. So we went to her house and it was really easy. We wrote the four songs there and they flew us back to write the fifth song for the movie.

NP: Over how many days did that all happen?

SF: Four days, four songs.

NP: Wow. A song per day.

SF: Yeah, I like to work fast. I like to do everything fast.

NP: What was it like working with Christina?

SF: I guess I was scared, because when you're someone's songwriter you're their bitch. You're not really in charge. I'm in charge of my job and my work. I'm the leader, I'm the boss, so it was kind of exciting to go in being somebody's employee.

I really enjoyed it. I loved it so much so that that's something that I'd like to do, you know, if I decide that touring really isn't for me. Because I'm not really comfortable with the fame aspect, and I don't like touring at this stage. That's why I'm gonna live on the bus for this tour. We're trying something different. I'm taking the dogs, and we're gonna live on the bus. I don't like hotels, I don't like being in different environments all the time.

NP: So what surprised you about working with Christina?

SF: The surprising part for me was just that she was really nice. It was really easy. The surprising part for me I think is that I liked having a boss. I liked working for somebody

NP: I guess having a set period of time where you've got to come up with songs and you've got a deadline, that can be a helpful discipline

SF: Well that's the only way I work. That's how I work for myself too. We schedule a day or we schedule days, and then I have different people come in and I work with them and write songs. We do a song a day, sometimes two. I don't ever like write unless it's scheduled.

NP: So who might be some of your dream artists to partner up with?

SF: I like pop music so I would like to write for pop artists. I'd like to write for Leona Lewis and Britney Spears. A lot of the artists whose voices I love, like Lauren Hill, I'd love to write for them as well, but they write their own music. She's one of my favorite voices. And Amy Winehouse, she writes her own stuff. So there's a lot of beautiful voices that I love but I know I couldn't write for 'cause they're writers; They don't need a top line writer. So I guess that really the only place for me is in pop music because the majority of independent artists write their own stuff...I sent Nelly Furtado a bunch of songs the other day, like about a hundred. I don't know if she'll use any of those but that'd be nice.



Sia's new album, We Are Born, is scheduled for release on June 8 via Monkey Puzzle/Jive Records. Her North American tour kicks off on April 10 in Vancouver, European dates follow in May. For more info go to SiaMusic.net/.

South Korean director Joon-ho Bong is still a fairly young guy at 40 and who has only four features under his belt: Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), a twisted comedy of manners about life in a barren apartment complex and the improprieties of eating your neighbors' dogs; Memories of Murder (2003),... more

South Korean director Joon-ho Bong is still a fairly young guy at 40 and who has only four features under his belt: Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), a twisted comedy of manners about life in a barren apartment complex and the improprieties of eating your neighbors' dogs; Memories of Murder (2003), a brutal-yet-weirdly-funny look at cops hunting a serial killer featuring South Korea's mega-star Kang-ho Song; The Host (2006), a viciously satiric monster movie also starring Kang-ho Song that in tone gene-splices Godzilla with Dr. Strangelove; and Mother (2009), a twisted farce and murder mystery starring the incredible Hye-ja Kim as a loving middle-aged mom trying to protect her mentally challenged son from a homicide rap. Even with what seems at first such scant credits, the Harvard Film Archive recently honored Joon-ho Bong with a retrospective that coincided with the upcoming North American release of Mother. SG sat down to talk to Joon-ho Bong in Harvard Square about his career so far and Mother.


Michael Marano: I've read that you studied sociology in college. Since in order to study societies, you have to observe them from the outside, with detachment, was this useful for you to make social satire?

Joon-ho Bong: Although I majored in sociology while I was in college, I didn't take many courses. Because I was much more interested in and [more] heavily involved with various cinema clubs and organizations. So, I wouldn't say that I know sociology as an academic discipline. But, due to the social conditions of the time and because many of my friends were involved with various student protests at the time [in the 1980s], I had somewhat of an experience in that sense.

MM: I'd like to talk about how you would have been a very young man during the prodemocracy demonstrations of the 1980s you mention that took place under President Roh Tae Woo. This was right after Chun Doo Hwan stepped down, and a while after the Gwangju Democratization Movement and Military Intervention. Did the contrast of this upheaval with the 1988 Olympic Games taking place in Seoul give you any insight that you've since used as a filmmaker?

JHB: The Olympics is a world event. It's a happy event, a festival. But while this was going on, there were also political suspects who were getting tortured by the police. And there were these serial killers killing women in the countryside, and the government could not quite find the murderer. So, there was almost an irony or paradox in the way in which the South Korean government and society experienced the 1970s and 1980s. And [my] movie Memories of Murder [which depicts both the police tortures and the murders] is situated just before the 1988 Olympics, between 1986 and 1987.

MM: I'd like to ask about your selection of characters for what I assume is their point of view. Because The Host, Mother and Memories of Murder have characters who are mentally challenged. Do you think telling stories about people who aren't fully integrated into a culture is the best way to comment on a culture?

JHB: I don't intend to always work with these mentally disabled or alienated characters in my movies. But when I construct dramas or a storyline, I always end up getting drawn to these characters who are helpless and weak, and who can't get help from the society or the people around them. And it's that desperate situation that I get most emotionally involved with. And I believe that when I work with these mentally disabled or weak characters, that helps me to talk about or portray the systems, whether they be governmental or social, [in terms of] their limitations or downside[s]. Because these systems actually work very conveniently for the ones who have, and the powerful ones, but they always end up in the alienation the weak and the helpless.

MM: In terms of how these systems don't help those who are weak, in Barking Dogs Never Bite, The Host, Memories of Murder and Mother there seems to be no boundary between the ways that the system fails to help people in their personal lives, and in society as a whole. Is there no difference between these two aspects of life? Because both "culture" and "home" don't seem to work. The system doesn't seem to help either one.

JHB: I think that is especially the case in South Korea, because unlike in many other countries, there really isn't a clear boundary between an individual and society or an individual and [the] nation. The relationship is much more ambiguous. Although comparatively, South Korea has gotten more individualistic [than it had been] in the past. But compared to the US or to Europe, South Korean individuals have a lot more ambiguous ties to society and with the nation. It's very common to see, in South Korea, when something happens to an individual, or within a family, rather than go through [the system] or a governmental institution, they'd rather go through friends who may be in the system or lawyers who might be their relatives. So, rather than use the system, they go through individual ties and relationships to resolve an issue.

MM: Your films jump from very funny to very sad, sometimes in the same scene [as in The Host when a heart-breaking memorial service degenerates into a family brawl]. Is there really much difference between farce and tragedy?

JHB: Even in my daily life, as I live my life day to day, I find that farce and tragedy are very hard to divide. They often always go together. And I think the way I look at life is very relevant to the way I make films. And although I deal with the same character or the same situation, depending on the distance of the camera--whether it is very close to them or far away from them, or my perspective distance from the characters or the situation--I think that's what makes the difference. The distance. What is most important to me as a director is that distance between myself, or my camera, and the character or the situation that I want to portray in my films. So, whether I want to get myself into the situation, or depict it as a fire that's burning across the river [gesturing through the window in the direction of the Charles River] that is very distant from myself, I think it is that distance that is always a very important part of my filmmaking. And also a very difficult [part]. And it's the decision of how far and how close I want to keep myself with the character or the situation that makes the audience either laugh or cry.


MM: So, let me continue with what you're saying about perspective and distance and boundaries. In your films, you jump from: farce to tragedy; personal to social and from home to cultural. You blur many, many boundaries. And yet, South Korean culture is defined by a boundary, the DMZ. Does that play in your jumping of boundaries at all?

JHB: [Laughs] You know, personally, I've never been to the DMZ in my 40 years in South Korea. I've only seen it through films such as JSA [aka Joint Security Area, Chan-wook Park's amazing thriller]. But I would say that even without the DMZ that there are a lot of stereotypes in South Korea that often induce stress or pressure. It's that prejudice that's very common in South Korea. So, for example, men's age--there's a lot of prejudice or stereotypes about men's age. It's very common when you meet a person for the first time, they always ask you how old you are, or for you to show them your ID [Laughs]. Even linguistically, it really sets a lot of boundaries to human relationships, because there is a polite way of speaking and a very casual way of speaking that creates this vertical relationship among people. So depending on their age, you either have to call the person as an older brother or an older sister. There's a lot of categorization that is created by the language or by age. And because there are so many prejudices or boundaries in South Korea, they make very interesting subjects or topics for my films. And there is also that much more [of an] opportunity to create humor or farce because of these prejudices and boundaries. One of the particular traits of South Koreans is that they tend to accept and adjust to something that you would think is very irrational. They're very quick to get themselves very accustomed to very unpredictable situations. Even among the very young generations. It's really very funny.

MM: What sort of irrational things are we talking about?

JHB: It varies from an individual case to a social case. But let me think about a good example, from one of my movies. In Barking Dogs Never Bite, we have the main protagonist named. He is a professor. He is an educated man, who ends up bribing [his way into a] professorship. It can be seen as something that is corrupt. But he accepts it so naturally, as if it just becomes part of his life. And just gets very naturally soaked into that social circumstance where one is expected to give money or to buy into these various positions.

MM: You are 40 years old. You are of the first generation of filmmakers who grew up with the VHS technology that allowed them to have the opportunities to see a broad array of films that previously people could only see if they went to film school. Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, what films did you look at through this technology that made you interested in film and that made you want to pursue the study of film?

JHB: Actually, I first got a VHS machine in 1988, the year of the Olympics. And that was when many video stores were opened and we had this very huge boom of video players in South Korea. I was a freshman in college then. But before the age of video players, I often encountered movies by watching them on TV. So, when I was in middle school or high school, I watched various films--South Korean films, American films, and European movies--on TV, rather than going to the theaters. And it was always a habit of mine to try to select the best five or ten movies of the year. When I was 14, 15, 16 years old, I was fascinated by Sam Peckinpah movies. But those movies were broadcast, so there was a lot of censorship, a lot of taking out of violent shots. But I could feel [what was cut out]. Often very violent scenes or sex scenes were taken out, between one shot and another shot. And I could always tell by watching them that something was amiss, and it was during those moments when my imagination would run wild, and I would try to imagine what was taken out and what was replaced. And since I was young, if the movies were thrillers or horror films, I liked movies that made me feel very intensely. Almost to the point of suffocating me. One of the examples is the European director Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear [Clouzot's thriller about guys driving truckloads of nitro-glycerin], one of the best movies when I was a kid. I was so anxious and so nervous watching that film, I remember almost not being ale to breathe and sweating. And every summer, South Korean TV stations would show Hitchcock's films, which I always enjoyed, because it brought this very fear, but also a very comical sense to me. For example, of course, Psycho and Frenzy were my favorites. And also many American 1970s movies, for example Marathon Man by John Schlesinger, I was fascinated by that movie.

MM: Did Psycho in terms of the mother/son relationship and murder, influence Mother?

JHB: I wasn't really thinking about the movie Psycho when I was writing the script for Mother. But during pre-production, I was somehow drawn to watch Psycho again twice. It was a very unconscious choice of mine. And in the movie Psycho we have the portrayal of the mother/son relationship, even though the mother has already passed away. And somehow, by watching that movie, I was inspired. And I wondered [what] if the mother hadn't died in Psycho? I wondered if the mother and son relationship in my movie were somehow similar to the mother/son relationship in Psycho. And also like in my film, Psycho was also based on a true story. And also after I made the film I wanted to read about Ed Gein [the 1950s necrophile who was the basis of Psycho's Norman Bates], and what his relationship with his mother was like. So I saw a lot of similarities between Psycho and my movie.

MM: Wait! Is Mother based on Ed Gein?

JHB: No! [Laughing]

MM: So Mother is based on which true story?

JHB: Mother is based loosely on a true story. Three or four years ago, in South Korea, a high school girl in the countryside. There was a high school girl who was notorious for relationships with various older men, and this incident was revealed by a Pastor there. And this became a huge social problem.

As the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make punk rock. OK, it doesn’t at all, but when Alkaline Trio’s front man and guitarist, the beloved and enigmatic Matt Skiba, found himself at a personal and professional crossroads he did what any true rocker worth his salt would do: he went back to... more

As the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make punk rock. OK, it doesn’t at all, but when Alkaline Trio’s front man and guitarist, the beloved and enigmatic Matt Skiba, found himself at a personal and professional crossroads he did what any true rocker worth his salt would do: he went back to his roots, which were in this case, the melodic punk that cemented Alkaline Trio into the skull-tattooed hearts of their devotees.
While preparing for his current tour and his new album’s release this February, Skiba took a moment to chat with SuicideGirls about making the record, and the benefits of drinking beer at the movies.
This Addiction, the new record from Alkaline Trio, arrives in stores February 23rd. Check out ThisAddiction.org for all the updates.


Auren Suicide: Hey Matt!
Matt Skiba: Hi, how ya doing, Lauren?
AS: I’m awesome, how are you?
MS: I’m doing well.
AS: What are you doing?
MS: I am watching [the 2009 Lars Von Trier film] Antichrist, drinking a Perrier and anxiously awaiting a phone call.
AS: Good. From me, I hope?
MS: Yes! Your call.
AS: Excellent. Well then I’m glad I’m not taking you away from a better phone call.
MS: No! Of course not!
AS: Are you in California right now?
MS: Yeah, I’m in Los Angeles.
AS: You’ve lived here for what, five years now?
MS: Actually it’s closer to seven. I was up in the [San Francisco] bay area for a few years but I’ve been down in Los Angeles for almost seven years now, I think.
AS: So it’s been good, right?
MS: Not bad! I never thought I’d say I live in L.A., but I really dig it now.
AS: Why? Because it has a bad reputation?
MS: Not only because it gets a bad rap. I’ve stayed here a lot, I’d come down here and record and work. I didn’t know very many people and that’s one thing that’s key to L.A. I’m a bit of a loner anyway, but after awhile you want to go and have some fun and don’t really know where to go or who to go with. But in living down here I’ve made a small handful of really good friends and I’ve had friends move out here from San Francisco and Chicago, so it’s home now. And the weather’s always nice, there are oceans, there are mountains. There’s everything. And a lot of my work is in Los Angeles so that makes it a lot easier.
AS: Are you still surfing?
MS: Yes.
AS: In Malibu?
MS: In Malibu. All over the place. Wherever there are waves I go.
AS: So you live here, but you went back to Chicago to make This Addiction.
MS: Yes.
AS: There’s been a lot of talk about how this record is a return to your musical roots. What was the impetus to go home to Chicago and explore a different sound from your last few records?
MS: It was an organic thing. We funded the recording ourselves. We’ve always had complete creative control, but there are times when, especially with a major label, things have to be OK’d. We never had to fight with anyone over it, but there is still that outside influence. It’s been a long time since we’ve done exactly what we wanted to do without radio in mind and without anything, quote unquote, working. When we were on tour we started to play a lot of the old stuff and some of the old ideas inspired some new ideas. So it just sort of happened. There was never a finite moment where we decided we’re going to make [Alkaline Trio’s first studio album] Goddamnit part two. There was just a time when we slowly started to realize that we were making a punk rock record which I don’t think we had done in a little while. It was really fun. We went back and recorded with the guy that did the first three records. It definitely brought us back to our roots.
AS: Alkaline Trio has been through so many record labels. Now that you have your own imprint on Epitaph—Heart and Skull—what’s it like to actually be your own boss? 
MS: It’s good [laughs]. I mean, we’ve never gotten ourselves into a position that we didn’t want to be in. There have been times, bumps in the road, but nothing major to speak of. We’ve been very fortunate. We did a lot of label-jumping. Right when we started with labels is when the industry took a nosedive and things started changing really fast. And so we just had to go with it and not really worry about it, and just keep growing up. We’ve never really had too much stress related to outside opinions or anything we’ve always been allowed to make our own decisions and we’ve always been supported in those decisions. Whether that is creatively or business-wise. But it is a good feeling to have something that is ours and have it be a partnership with people that we’re so fond of. Being with Epitaph is perfect for us. And having our imprint, we’ll see what happens with that, but it is a new chapter. So it’s not a relief or anything. It’s just something exciting and new. When we were writing we had no label ideas in mind. We just knew that we were going to try and put it out ourselves.
AS: Right, so it’s a fresh start, this record.
MS: It is. We presented Epitaph with the finished product. And that’s what sealed the deal.
AS: I know you’re a big book guy. Is there anything in particular you were reading during this album process that stuck with you?
MS: Usually I’m reading a bunch of different things. There was a book I highly recommend called Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA [by Richard C. Hoagland and Mike Bara]. There are people who will argue that Dark Mission is a fictional book. But it is a non-fiction book. It was written by two scientists who were with the NASA organization for over 40 years. They exposed some pretty sobering evidence about the mysteries of the universe. For me, I find that pretty exciting. The mysteries of the universe, I don’t think they’ll remain mysteries forever. But I think that there are a lot of things, if people knew, would be terrified. Myself, I find it exhilarating. The New York Times called it, I think, ‘one of the most dangerous books ever written.’ It’s pretty profound.
AS: Really?
MS: Yeah. I was reading Dark Mission and that led to me reading a lot about secret Nazi technology that NASA ended up using. There were Nazi scientists that were pardoned and cleared of their war crimes, brought over here to build rockets for NASA, which was originally a weapons program. I’m going off on a tangent, but there’s nothing about space men or mystery machines in this book. There is just actual proof. I’ll let people find it out for themselves because if I were to just say it they’d be like, ‘no way—that’s not true.’ But it is. So yeah, Dark Mission, that was my main read, from the Feral House publishing company, who also put out the SuicideGirls book!
AS: Yes! So, your inspirational reads were Dark Mission, followed closely by our lovely SuicideGirls pinup book. I agree that the mysteries of the universe will be answered but the scary thing is, those answers just lead to more questions and even harder puzzles to solve. It’s an endless cycle.
MS: When you have mathematical measurements and they’re broken down into laymen’s terms you’re like, ‘wow.’ I was interested in reading this stuff at first because I was skeptical. But I love it. I’ve read the book like three times to try and wrap my head around the concepts. I’m entirely convinced.
AS: I get frustrated when I try to read that stuff.
MS: No way, this stuff is easy. People that have a lot of faith in religion…well, if religion is really making you happy then don’t read this book. I’ll put it that way [laughs].  
AS: Religion makes a lot of people pretty miserable.
MS: Religion has a lot to do with family and upbringing and I respect people with different faiths. My grandmother was Catholic. And she really believed it and I was very close with her and I respect people’s beliefs. I have friends who consider themselves Christians. I think it’s all a universal language all based on the same concepts. It all means the same thing. Science and religion can be synonymous if people are open-minded.
AS: Science is a religion, because science gives you answers.
MS: Yeah. It’s about fact. My religion is the truth. Without the questions and the mysteries that we have life would be boring.
AS: Are you painting these days? 
MS: I haven’t been. I’ve been moving. I just moved into a new house a few weeks ago so I’m waiting to get everything set up. We’ve been really busy with band stuff so I haven’t had the time to paint. But it’s definitely something I love to do when I have the time. And I’ll continue to do more of it.
AS: On your art MySpace page you have a postcard piece up. It looks like it has something to do with Kurt Cobain? It seems like it’s in his writing and its signed ‘Kurdt.’
MS: It’s a replica of a postcard that Kurt wrote to a friend of mine and she kept it. He wrote it to her and it’s exactly what it looked like. The stamp is Buffalo Bill, everything on there is the same. I just projected the actual postcard onto the canvas and traced the handwriting so it’s exactly what the postcard looked like. That’s how he actually spelled his name, with the ‘d.’ You know, whenever Kurt Cobain would sign autographs he would ask people what their name was and he would just write down their name. He was a pretty funny, groovy guy and I have friends who were pretty good friends with. They were all, you know, doing a lot of drugs together, but they spent a lot of good years with him and have a lot of his personal belongings. I thought that postcard was pretty amazing.
AS: Did you ever meet him? Did you ever see Nirvana live?
MS: I never met him, no. I did see Nirvana live though. I liked Nirvana when [their first album, 1989’s] Bleach came out and I was super excited when [1991’s] Nevermind came out, which is a great record. I felt like one of my favorite bands was taking over the world. There were people who were bummed, of course, but for me it’s great when great bands get big. You know? The world needs good music. And Nirvana stayed totally true to themselves. They kept cranking out great music.
AS: I agree! You know, a lot of people are like ‘In Utero, whatever,’ but it’s my favorite, I think it’s a perfect record.
MS: In Utero is my favorite Nirvana record. I love it. Steve Albini, man!
AS: So do the other guys in Alkaline Trio live in Chicago?
MS: [Drummer] Derek [Grant] lives in Chicago again but he was living in Indiana for Awhile. [Bassist and vocalist] Dan [Andriano] lives down in Florida with his wife and daughter.
AS: How do you guys come together to form a cohesive album when you’re not together?
MS: Well we were on tour most of the time we were writing this record so we actually were together the whole time during the writing process. We wrote the record intentionally while we were on the road. I would write a song one night and then the next day at sound check we would run through it. It came together pretty quickly, we were all on the same page. They are fun songs to play and they were fun songs to write. But this was different. In the last couple of years, we did a lot of it digitally. I could send you an MP3 in the next minute.
AS: So you just said that this was a fun album to play and write but a lot of the themes are pretty angst-y and heartbroken.  
MS: Yeah, I was pretty angst-y and heartbroken when I wrote all of those songs. And I think that has a lot to do with the tone of the record because I hadn’t been in that sort of mind frame for a while. I think a lot of people feel angry and heartbroken about whatever it is they might be going through—politics, relationships, friendships, a cat dying—whatever the case may be. And I had some things go on in my life that just brought me back to that very drunk, very angry and sad young man that I was ten years ago. I never went completely off the deep end but I had some dark times and therefore there is some darkness. Not spooky dark, just sad and angry shit.
AS:The title track, This Addiction, points out that love and addiction are the same things. You can be addicted to love or your relationship just like you can be addicted to heroin. What’s worse for you? Taking drugs or getting out of a bad relationship?
MS: Taking drugs you usually feel pretty good! Not to be pro-drug guy or anything but I will say I’m not anti-drug. I don’t do anything and everything, I pick my poison, but I also think that you need to moderate and you also need to handle your shit. I’m a kid 99% of the time, but there are also times, like now, where you gotta man up and have it together. I think even when you’re partying you should have it together. Losing someone, having someone die on you, having someone leave you, is a terrible process. I had a good friend of mine pass away, just as my marriage started to fall apart. Death and divorce are very similar feelings. One almost worse because it’s out of your control. One almost as worse because it is in your control. It depends on the person. You can’t compare grief. But whenever I’m confronted with some opposing force I always try and use it to my advantage. I never let it bring me down too deep.
AS: Well I’m sorry to hear that.
MS: I’m good. I’m good now!
AS: Good! Recently SuicideGirls put up an interview with Dita Von Teese…
MS: Nice, I’m a fan, she’s a sexy lady!
AS: She is a sexy lady! Anyway, in the interview she kind of gave her recipe for getting over a breakup. So do you have one? Since you’re all good now?
MS: I think drinking beer in the movies by yourself a lot is good. I think doing fun, spontaneous things is good. Rather than sitting around feeling sorry for yourself take your new freedom and run with it. Go explore. Have fun. It’s hard to get out of bed sometimes, but you have to understand that there’s going to be a light at the end of the tunnel and rather than walking towards it you should start running towards. Enjoy your life while you have it. So alcohol at the movies, solo, is a good one. That worked good for me. I was there a lot. Beer bottles clanking and stuff. I have a couple of really good friends that were there for me when I was having a rough time. I was on tour and my band mates were always there to yank me out of my bunk and force me to gallivant with them. We were all going through weird things at a certain time and we were all there for each other. You just gotta find yourself again, on your own. I love spending time by myself. I never yell at myself, I never get mad at myself if I’m late. Well, if I miss the previews I might be a little pissed [laughs] but if you can learn to love being solo again, that’s the key. And I think moving on as quickly as you can is good, but definitely not jumping into something else real quick. Have fun and hang out with people but also hang out with yourself. With beer. At the movies.  
AS: Did you make any resolutions for 2010?
MS: No! I’m doing the exact opposite. I’m going to do more of everything. If something’s affecting me negatively I just stop then and there. I don’t wait for the New Year to stop. But 2010 is going to be a good one. It’s going to be a party.
AS: Amen! Good luck on tour and congratulations on the record. Thanks so, so much for talking to SuicideGirls. Have a great day.
MS: Thanks, love!
Alkaline Trio’s seventh studio album, This Addiction comes out February 23rd on Epitaph Records/Heart & Skull. A full U.S. tour with indie rockers Cursive begins on February 16th. Check Alkaline Trio’s official MySpace for dates.